Producing imitations of oil paintings



Jan. 15, 1924. 1,480,639

' H. R. STONE pnonucme IMITATIONS OF 011.. mmwmes Filed Oct. 5. 1921- t 2 r Y E F q fi o ward Q5 Patented Jan. 15, 1924.

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.Application filed October ,5, 1921. Serial No. 505,500.

To all whom it may concern:

"Be itknown that I, HowAnn R. S'roNn, citizen of the United States, residing at Evanston, Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Producing Imitations of Oil Paintings; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as willenable others skilled in the art to which itappertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to imitations of oil paintings and to the methods of producing the same, its general objects being those of providing a simple, expeditious andinexpensive method of manipulating flat color prints to give themthe effect of oil paintings and to provide inexpensively embossed color prints so as .to have these imitate both the canvas surface and the brush markings of corresponding oil paintings. my invention aims, to, overcome the limitations and objections encountered with the previously employed methods of producing imitation oil paintings from ordinary flat color printsand aims .to provide simple easily prepared and inexpensive means: for making a suitable embossing plate which will enable the entire imitating effect to be imparted to the print with a single impresa. general method for this purpose which will be specially adapted for use with mounted printsand which will make due allowance for the normal stretching of the prints while these are being mounted. It also aims to accomplish the aforesaid general purposes with a relatively small amount of hand labor. and

without requiring highly skilled artists.-

Still further and more detailed objects will 4 Fig. 3 is a similar section taken after the corresponding markingshave been filled in orraised with wax.

Fig. 4 is a section similar'toFig. 2 but taken after brush markings have been added to various portions.

Fig; 5 is asection of the embossing plate Furthermore,

, highly skilled labor, and the expense involved sion. So also my invention aims to provide appear from the following specification and painting.

made from the matrix shown sectionally in Fig.4.

Fig. -6 is a fragmentary plan view of a mounted print in which some portions of the canvas fmarkings have been leveled after the manner of F ig. 2 or Fig. 3.

In manipulating fiat color prints to, make these similar to oil paintings, it has long been customary to employ embossing plates for raising and depressing various surface portions soas to imitate both the texture of canvas and the brush-markings of oil paintings, but various difficulties have been encountered with themethods heretofore employed for thisgeneral purpose. For example, it has been customary to employ a photographic method for making the matrix from which the desiredembossing plate is produced, but this introduces a number of serious limitations, one being the time, the

in producing a properly effective embossing die by a primarily. photographic method.

Another objection to such a method 'isthe fact that the photograph must be made from an actual oil painting on. canvas, which means eitherthat the original painting must be available for this purpose, or thata duplicate of the must first be preparedat considerable expense ona canvas surface. Furthermore, many oil paintings of which I cheap reproductions would be desirable are painted in I such "detail v and on material of such affine texture that a photographically accurate reproduction of the surface irregularities of the original will,not afford an adequate matrix for imparting the desired effect to color. print reproductions of the original. That is to say, the resulting embossed prints would be tOO fiat to qualifyas adequately imitating the effect 'ofan oil Furthermore, in order to ,niake reproductions more impressive, it is often desirable to increase the apparent emphasis on certain features of ,the picture, which is impossible with any methodxlepending on a photographic reproductionof the surface irregularities of the originalandwhich-will not afford. an adequate matrix for imparting thedesired effect tocolor prints of thepriginal. That is to say, theresulting. embossed prints would be too fiat to qualify as adequately imitatingthe efi'ectof an,oil;pa i nting. Furthermore, in order to make repro= .in the original.

ductions more impressive, it is often desirable to increase the apparent emphasis on certain features of the picture, which is impossible with any method depending on a photographic reproduction of what is shown So also, the differences in the actinicvalues of various colors make it difiicult for any purely photograpl'lic method to reproduce the actual proportion of surface irregularities appearing in different colors, so that any embossing plate depending on a purely photographic method for such an important step in its manufacture is apt to distort the actual effects of the photographed original.

Moreover, if the finished color prints are to be mounted, it is important that the process of mounting them shall not interfere with the raised effect which is needed for simulating both the brush markings and the anvas markings of an oil painting. It is also important that due allowance should be made for the stretching of the print during the mounting, and embossing plates prepared by primarily photographic methods will not allow for this stretching of the print, so that the resulting embossing will not be in proper register throughout the print.

To overcome the various objections above noted and to allow for the stretching of prints if these are mounted, I desirably do not take the original of the selected oil painting or any reproduction of the latter on canvas or cloth as the starting point for the matrix from which the needed embossing plate is made. Instead, I start with one of the fiat color prints which are to be produced in quantities and which are to be em bossed to make them imitate the effects of oil paintings, and first mount one of these prints on its customary backing of cardboard by pasting the same thereon in exactly the manner in which all of the prints of a given batch are to be mounted. In doing so, both the moisture of the paste and the pressure exerted in smoothing the print on the cardboard backing will stretch the print somewhat, but in practice this stretching is approximately uniform, so that the resulting mounted print is a fairly exact duplicate of the mounted color prints which are to be subjected to the method of my invention.

I then impart a canvas-surface imitating effect to the entire face of the print either by running a stippling roller over the same, by correspondingly embossing the mounted print with a plate affording this substantially uniform canvas grain effect, or by what is commonly known in the trade as plaiting, namely by placing a sheet of canvas or other textile material over the mount ed print and running a roller over this with suflicient pressure to impress the surface .it resist the action of water and acids.

markings into the face of the print. This gives me the effect shown in Fig. 1, which shows a print 1 mounted on a cardboard backing 2 and having the entire surface of the print canvas marked with fair uniformity. If the imitation canvas markings as thus produced tend to obliterate the details of various parts of the picture, I may flatten or depress some of the raised portions of these markings by burnishing or smoothing them down with any suitable tool in those portions of the picture in which the detail should be clearly discernible, thus securing the effect shown in section in Fig. 2 and in plan in Fig. 6, namely one in which the portions A, B, etc. have the canvasimitating surface markings obliterated. Or, I may fill the depressions between the raised points in these same portions of the picture with wax, paint or the like (rubbing off any surplus of the same) so as to level these portions after the manner shown at E, F and G in Fig. 3. In either case, this procedure gives me a mounted print having its surface portion suitably marked with imitation canvas effects.

I next use a brush in applying any suitable hard drying material (such as a wax dissolved in alcohol) to desired portions of the picture, so that the drying of the wax or the like will leave raised ridges in imitation of the brush-marks of an oil painting, thereby making such changes as those shown by the difference between Figs. 2 and 4 in the drawings.

Then I employ the resulting mounted and brush-marked print (which is also surfaced more or less in imitation of canvas or the like) directly as the matrix for the first step in producing the needed embossing plate. For this purpose, I first treat the brush and canvas marked mounted print so as to make This may be done by any desirable method which will not materially affect the markings, as for example by giving both'sides of this matrix a thin coating of a linseed oil varnish or of a gutta-percha lacquer. After allowing this coating to dry, I coat its face with graphite and hang the matrix in a plating bath opposite a copper anode and electrolytically deposit a shell of copper 3 on the face of the matrix. By backing this shell with a suitably thick layer 4- of a lead alloy after the manner customary in electrotype practice, I obtain an embossing plate (such as the one shown sectionally in Fig. 5) which has its surface marked in-reverse from that of the previously treated mounted print and which can easily and speedily be used upon duplicates of the original mounted print for reproducing the surface irregularities of the doubly marked print which served as the matrix.

It will be obvious from the above that the method of my invention does not require any original oil painting to be available, or any copy of the original to be produced on canvas or other textile material. Also, that the degree of coarseness of the canvas can be varied as desired, thus enabling me to produce impressive imitations even from originals in which the canvas marking is hardly discernible. It will likewise be evident that if a subduing of the canvas marking in certain portions of the picture during the preparing of the matrix is desired, this can easily be accomplished by a cheap helper, it being merely necessary for the party in charge to mark the matrix print, after this has been uniformly stippled so as to indicate the parts on the same on which the imitationcanvas markings are to be subdued. It will likewise be evident that the brush marking can be varied in extent and in coarseness at the discretion of the operator, so that I am not limited by the extent or fineness of these markings in the original painting.

Moreover, the entire procedure involved in preparing the needed embossing plate is exceedingly simple and inexpensive and requires comparatively little time, it being unnecessary even to make a reverse plate first. So also, since the print used in making the matrix was initially mounted in the same manner as the prints which are to be subjected to my process, my method makes due allowance for the stretching which occurs during this mounting. By simply providing for the proper register of the embossing plate, I can therefore secure uniformly effective reproductions at a very slight addition in cost to that of the ordinary fiat mounted prints.

However, while I have described my invention as used in connection with mounted prints, it will be obvious that the same can be similarly employed with unmounted prints and that the same can likewise be employed for producing brush-mark effects without simulating canvas markings. So also, while I have described a highly desirable method of carrying out my invention, I do not wish to be limited to this, nor to other presented details, it being obvious that the method and means of my invention might be modified in many ways withoutdeparting from its spirit or from the appended claims. For example, the brush and canvas marked matrix might be molded in wax after the manner customary in electrotyping and used for electrolytically producing a reverse plate from which the desired embossing plate is then produced.

I claim as my invention:

1. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in mounting a flat color print, producing surface irregularities in imitation of canvas marks thereon, brushing a coating material on the print to form brush marks, using the resulting doubly marked print as the matrix for making an embossing die, and embossing duplicates of the said flat color print with the said die.

2. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in producing surface irregularities in imitation of canvas marks on selected portions on a print, brushing a coating material on the print to form brush marks on selected portions of the print, using-the resulting doubly marked print as a matrix for an embossing die, and embossing duplicates of the flat color print with the said die.

3. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in stretching a flat print by mounting it, surfacing the mounted printin imitation of fabric, depressingportions of the surface which have become more or less obliterated by the surfacing step, brushinga coating material over portions to leave brush marks, and using the thus prepared print as a matrix.

i. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in surfacing a fiat print in imitation of canvas, depressing portions of the canvas markings to accentuate portions of the print, filling in other portions, and producing raised brush marks on still other portions of the print.

5. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in surfacing the entire face of a fiat color print in imitation of canvas,

leveling the canvas-imitating effect wherever the same interferes with the desired detail of the print, using the thus prepared print as a matrix for producing an emboss ing plate, and embossing duplicates of the original fiat color print with the said plate.

6. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in surfacing the entire face of a fiat color prin'tin imitation of canvas, levcling the canvas-imitating effect wherever the same interferes with the desired detail of the print, afiixing brush marks to selected portions of the print, using the thus prepared print as a matrix for producing an embossing plate, and embossing duplicates of the original flat color print with the said plate.

7. The method of imitating oil paintings which consists in surfacing a fiat print in imitation of canvas, depressing portions of the canvas markings to accentuate portions of the prints, fillin in other portions, and then in using the t us prepared print as matrix.

Signed at Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 27th,

HOWARD R. STONE. 

